


even fairytale characters would be jealous

by MiniMax



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Multi, Season 5 AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:21:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23687581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniMax/pseuds/MiniMax
Summary: In the end, there will only be stories and those with memory left to tell them.
Relationships: 23rd Timeline William "Penny" Adiyodi/Julia Wicker, Fen/Margo Hanson/Josh Hoberman, Margo Hanson/Josh Hoberman, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 11
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

_What do you do_  
_When your lifes a disaster_  
_And you're moving faster_  
_And it's getting harder to breathe_

_What do you say_  
_To someone whose right but_  
_You disagree_  
_Even if it's the truth_

_-Decipher Reflections from Reality,_ PlayRadioPlay!

**Eliot**

Eliot rocks the widower look. 

He leans back from the mirror to take in his appearance, running his hand down his chest, over the paisley print vest and onyx buttons. He’s pale in the mirror, and he’s fairly confident that his cheekbones have never looked so sharp. He looks like every MCR, Johnny Depp, cut glass, gothic fantasy he’d ever had as a late teen. If he’d known that the secret to the covetous look was _this,_ this _total_ and _agonizing_ choking bile of _regret_ and—

Eliot exhales sharply and braces himself against the sink, dots flashing in his vision, head spinning. 

He has forgotten to breathe. 

Again.

He’s been wondering if the monster had a habit of breathing less than his actual body needed. The bits that he has managed to hear from Julia and Alice and Penny about the state that the monster had kept his body in made him wonder what other delightful ticks he’ll discover about his physiology in time. He’d seen the clothes and graphic tees it favored; the rank mess his hair had been left in was simply a crime. Even during his years at the mosaic, he’d maintained excellent hair care, they had managed to make a conditioner, they had—

 _They_ —

Eliot looks down at the sink, at the gel and wide toothed comb he’d set out to style his hair with for the evening. For the memorial. For the funeral.

He slams open the tap with a shaking hand and runs the comb under it, tap tap tapping it against the edge of the basin and setting it aside. Twisting open the tub of gel, he scoops his fingertips into it, ignoring the lid as it goes clattering to the ground. He’s too tired to care, and stares into the mirror as he pulls it through his curls. He drags the comb back, over and over, mindlessly, enjoying the scrape of the teeth against his scalp. Enjoys it and wonders why. Enjoys it and remembers Q running his fingers through Eliot’s hair countless nights, sprawled out in front of their fire. Over and over. Enjoys it and wonders if he’s always enjoyed it or if the monster enjoyed it and now he only _thinks_ he enjoys it. Over and over and over—

“ _Fuck!”_ Eliot drops the comb into the sink. The still running water turns pink and his scalp is stinging and he isn’t enjoying it and his hands are shaking and he wonders.

Have his eyes always been so dark? 

Or is some residue of the monster staring back at him?

“El?”

Eliot closes his eyes, and turns away from the mirror. “A moment, Bambi,” he calls, and he’s impressed that he’s managed to keep his voice steady. He turns the faucet off and makes his way into the bedroom, moving slow against the pull of stitches along his stomach. There’s an elegant black pea coat, draped along the end of the bed. 

Margo knocks lightly against the door, turning the handle. “El, I’m coming in.”

He manages to wrangle his face into an expression of arch disdain, making Margo roll her eyes, and push further into the room. “You get what you were looking for in Fillory?” he asks.

“I did yeah,” Margo says, quiet. There’s a lot of quiet between the two of them now. “I saw Fen while I was there.”

“She didn’t want to come?” Eliot asks, hearing the flatness in his voice.

“ _Couldn’t_ actually.” Margo’s voice sounds different. Sharp. “I didn’t even see Josh while Penny and I were there. Apparently, things have fallen apart with the mermaids, and the resurgence of magic has caused problems they couldn’t leave behind.”

“Fillory and further fucking problems,” Eliot sighs, and pulls the coat on, buttoning it slowly. 

Margo steps in front of him, pushing his hands out of the way, taking over the task. When she’s finished, she wraps her hand around his and looks up at him. “El. You can stay here as long as you need. While your body heals.” Her eyes are bright and he reaches up, dragging his thumb along her cheek. She leans into his touch.

He loves Margo so very much. He knows this but it feels muted and very far away.

“It’s not going to matter where I am, Margo,” he says. “So I’d rather be with you.”

She turns her head and presses a kiss into his knuckles. “Okay. Whatever you need. I’m not going to lie and say that having you in my line of sight isn’t gonna make me feel a lot better.”

“You could always leave your eyeball with me,” Eliot answers, pulling back. 

Margo wrinkles her nose. “Gross, El. Come on. This isn’t going to get any more cheerful. Do you have a token?” 

“It’s in the kitchen,” he manages, and his mind feels far away. In the kitchen, which means out of the bedroom, and down the stairs, and through the living room, to the kitchen where he had seen peaches in a bowl on the island, as if they’d been waiting for him. Just to make him trip and gasp and pull his stomach tight and his heart wrench and—

“Here.”

Margo is at his side pressing a—

“What’s that?”

“Your cane, I’m assuming,” she says, tucking her arm into his elbow. “Ostentatious thing like this can only be yours. I like it. It’s very Jon Snow chic.”

Eliot looks down at the white wolf carved into the black cane. He notices, this time, when he stops breathing.

“Where—?”

“It was in the bathroom, against the sink.”

He looks back over his shoulder and only sees his reflection staring back at him.

“El?”

“Yeah, it’s mine,” he manages, turning back and patting her hand softly. “Thanks for getting it for me.” He leans on it heavily as they start out the door. He falls into an easy rhythm with the cane, as if he’s spent half a lifetime walking with it. They make their way down to the kitchen, where he spends too long trying to pick the perfect peach, ignoring the silent press of Margo’s curiosity. 

“They’re waiting,” she says finally.

Eliot and Margo step out into the night, into the darkness, following the spark of light to what’s left of their family.

**Alice**

She’s curled in a chair in front of the cold fireplace when Eliot and Margo finally come in from the cold. Eliot is leaning heavily on both his cane and Margo, and she thinks that the figure he cuts is the very portrait of grief. Margo looks at her briefly before guiding Eliot to the couch next to her chair. He holds his shit together until Margo leaves the room and then Alice watches his composure crumple.

 _Even his loss of composure is lovely_ , she thinks distantly, as she watches the way he fractures.

She thinks this should be weird, or awkward, or painful, as she sits staring at one half of the reason her relationship with Quentin fell to pieces. She thinks she should be furious with Eliot for appearing to feel such anguish for her boyfriend. She thinks he shouldn’t be allowed to grieve, that had he not been possessed by the monster, Q would still be here, that the need for this night is his fault. She thinks she wants to tear him to pieces.

Alice isn’t sure if Eliot can be broken into pieces any smaller than he already appears to be. Which has her curious, because she’s been wondering:

“A peach?”

His hand twitches on the handle of his cane.

“A Brakebills South mug?” he asks back, and she knows that from the Eliot of her first year, that question would have been cutting and vicious. This one just sounds scooped out.

She thinks about the things that people burned. Things she doesn’t know the story behind. She thinks about the feel of Eliot’s hand in her own, the trembling live wire of pain. How, holding his hand, her pain seemed to ricochet through him and back to her, multiplying and lessening and multiplying until Eliot couldn’t seem to hold on anymore and burned his peach and curled in on himself.

Alice had wanted to grab his hand back. If he insisted on pretending his pain could rival hers, then he could damn well hold steady under the press of it all with her.

“The first thing he did after finding out his discipline was put that mug back together.”

“Oh?” Eliot turns his head in her direction, but his eyes don’t leave the fireplace.

“Yes, _oh_. While we were searching for a way to defeat the Monster. In the midst of time travel nonsense, Miyakovski figured out his discipline. Repair of small objects.”

He laughs softly. “He was always good at minor mendings.”

Alice inclines her head in agreement, and then scowls. She’s not sure when Eliot would have had enough time with Quentin to have picked up on such a thing. Eliot was well into his reign when they were first taught the tuts for mending. “Did he mend many things in front of you?”

He sighs heavily. “Yeah, in the midst of time travel nonsense, he did fix a thing or two.” 

She stares at him, spine stitched tight.

Eliot starts to slide off the couch, slouching down with his legs splayed wide, ass pushing off the seat. It can’t be comfortable, and is probably pulling at his stitches. She hopes they tear.

Alice takes a steadying breath. “If mocking me is how you grieve then—”

“Settle down torture artist.” Eliot pats the ground next to him. 

She considers, and makes a more dignified slide to the ground. They stare forward into the hearth. 

Eliot sighs, and reaches out, laying his hand palm up against her knee. She stares at it, but doesn’t reach back.

“I realize there’s probably nothing I can do to convince you of this,” he begins, and even though he is right next to her, she has to strain to hear his words. “Alice, I have no ill will towards you. Actually,” he slants her a look. “I take that back. I wished you ill in your first year when you failed to notice Margo pining for you. But here and now? I promise I am not mocking you, and frankly I’m more then a little insulted that you think I would at Q’s fucking funeral.”

Alice stares straight ahead.

“I suppose I do know better,” she concedes at last. “Attempted suicide by alcohol poisoning is your usual grieving method.”

Eliot tips his head back and laughs what sounds like a genuine laugh. “You’re such a bitch.”

“Margo would know,” she snipes back.

“Take my hand already,” he scolds. “Q wouldn't want to see us being bitchy.”

“Then hopefully he saw us with our shit together outside.” She takes his hand anyway, and holds on tight.

“I hope not,” he sighs. “Can you imagine? Who’d want to see their own funeral? Just more depressing shit he’d have to carry around.”

They’re quiet for a time and then-

“Do you still feel the niffin?”

She looks at him sharply. “Do you still feel the monster?”

He shrugs, but doesn’t meet her eye. 

“Eliot—"

“Okay snuggle bums, time to wrap it up.” 

Margo steps in front of the fireplace and stares down at them, a pretty picture of composure. It’s not a very good one, Alice thinks, which is the only reason she doesn’t start a fight about her tone. 

“Heeeeey, Bambi,” Eliot responds, and though he sounds listless, his eyes seem to soften with genuine relief. “Is it that time already?”

“It _is_ darling,” Margo coos back, “so I’m going to need you to get up and grab anything you might need. The Penny express is leaving momentarily and I’ve been warned there won’t be any more stops leaving the station if we don’t hop on this ride in the next ten minutes.”

Between the two of them, Margo and Alice get Eliot on his feet. “Potty break,” he says with a wave of his hand, and slips out of the room, leaning heavily on his cane.

“I’m really tired of El getting shafted by the universe,” Margo muses. “Just once, it would be lovely for him to—” She breaks off as she notices Alice staring.

“Oh no, _please_ continue,” Alice hears herself saying. “Lovely for him to what?”

Margo considers her for a long while, and Alice wonders if Eliot was serious about Margo ever pining for her. She can’t picture it. 

“Lovely for him to be happy. Just a little bit, in this _actual_ life.”

“He stays alive for you, you know,” Alice says quietly before she can think better of it. “ _You_ make him happy.”

Margo’s eyes tear up, and she doesn't pull back when Margo reaches out to run her fingers through her hair. “That’s sweet of you to say, Alice, honey. But I would rather have Eliot alive and happy, then alive and going through the motions. I’ve spent enough time watching that.”

Alice thinks about Eliot drowning after killing Mike. How no one reached out. How no one knew how to reach out. How she had literally just thrown that in his face.

“Me too.”

Margo smiles, and it’s perfect and lovely and so so brittle. “I’m sorry that you and Q were starting to get back to good, just in time for this shit awful fall out.”

“Me too,” Alice says again.

“You should try to be happy too. If you can. I’m pretty tired of all the drama.”

Alice nods, because she has a strict rule of only repeating herself once in the course of a conversation, and Margo will not make her break it. 

“Our ride is here, Bambi.” They turn to see Eliot leaning against the doorway to the foyer, waving his cane in Penny’s general direction, who manages to look both annoyed and fond.

“Gotta go then, honey bunch,” Margo says, dropping her hand. “Time to clean up whatever mess Fen and Josh managed to get themselves into. When you guys inevitably get into more trouble, reach out okay? Try to wait like, at least a month first though.”

“Sure,” Alice says. She watches them go, and the strangled sinking seeping pain of the past few days surges up again. She’s really tired of watching people’s backs.

“Hey Margo,” Alice calls out. Margo looks back. “Don’t stop being a bitch, okay?"

Her smile is perfect and lovely and this time, it is also strong. “I won’t if you won’t.”

“Deal.”

Margo reaches Eliot and takes the arm he offers her. He glances over at Alice, hesitates, then says: “Maybe we can keep mending things. I mean, I’m going to _try_ mending things, and I’m probably going to fuck it up, but I’m gonna try.”

Alice nods jerkily. “Me too.”

Then Penny reaches out to them, they blip away, and Alice is alone.

She sits back down in front of the fireplace, and after a moment lets her hands glide through the tut for fire, watching it roar to life.

She doesn’t _feel_ alone.

**Penny**

Quentin was a dick.

Or at least, from his world he was.

The Quentin _he_ knew was a dick.

Like, the kind of white boy dick that couldn’t get over his crush on his best friend while also being jealous of his new girlfriend.

The kind of dick that made his best friend feel guilty for falling in love with someone who wasn’t him. 

The kind of dick that guilt tripped his best friend into going on an epic quest about his boyhood obsession, got pissed cause it wasn’t about him, got his fucking shade destroyed, and turned into a best friend killing monster.

Penny didn’t like the Quentin from his world, and he was on shaky footing about his stance on this world’s Q.

That being said, he’s not mad that it’s Q who’s dead and not Julia. Even if she’s not his Julia. Any Julia is worth more than any Q.

He’s confident that Q would have agreed, and that makes Penny think that he did like him. Or would have, if given more time. 

Penny takes in the hollowed-out look on Eliot’s face as they arrive in Fillory and tries to decide if there’s any point in trying to say any of that. He had been reluctantly amused by the Eliot from his world, but barely knows this one.

Except that doesn’t feel very true at all, because he’s seen this Eliot in the minds of all the people around him for months now. Slipping through the cracks of Margo’s diamond burr mind, from Julia’s ocean well dreams, and leaking all over the place from Quentin’s because clearly there didn’t exist a single Q who could maintain a proper mental shield.

He thinks he’s tired of everything. Of death and dying.

“Do you guys need anything else from me?”

Margo looks at him but Eliot doesn’t seem to hear. “A traveler app? So we can ping you when we want a lift back?”

Penny rolls his eyes. “I’m only nice at funerals and birthdays, so how about no.”

Margo shrugs. “Well then, just smile pretty and say goodbye.”

“Are you ever not dramatic?” 

She scoffs. “Have you met me?”

“Right.” He looks around and breathes in the opium air, feeling his emotions quiet. “Look, I’ll stop back from time to time just to check in, okay?”

“Sounds good, Pen,” she says. “Thanks for the ride.”

He shrugs. “It’s what I’m here for.”

Eliot makes some choked off laughing noise. “ _Now_ who’s being dramatic?”

“Excuse me?”

Eliot turns to look at him with a heavy sigh. “Of course you’re more than a ride. Come back only if you want to. Not because you think you have to. Julia needs you right now.”

Penny shoots an incredulous look at Eliot. “Yeah, how about, no she _doesn’t_.”

“No Penny I’ve ever met has been an idiot. Don’t start proving me wrong now.” 

“I’m not being an idiot. Julia doesn’t _need_ anyone. Least of all the guy who let her best friend die, and took the decision about her own mortality out of her hands. I’m _not_ who she needs.”

Eliot shakes his head impatiently. “Need, want, have to have, can’t say no to. It’s all the _same_ , Penny. Her world just collapsed and she’s got to start picking up the pieces. Your world collapsed in all sorts of literal ways so you've got practice picking up the pieces. I’m sure you can show her the ropes."

“Who’s gonna show _you_ the ropes?” Penny snaps back without thinking. The look Margo shoots him makes him regret every decision he’s ever made.

Eliot just shrugs. “Everyone seems to forget. Q’s not the first partner I’ve lost. I didn’t personally kill them this time, though an argument could be made that it’s my fault regardless.”

“Partner, El?” Margo sounds surprised, and Penny doesn’t know why. “I know you’ve nursed a crush on Q for years, but a drunken night stand doesn’t make him a partner.” She looks at Penny. “Is there something wrong with his memory?”

“No,” Penny and Eliot answer at the same time, and Penny gestures for Eliot to continue.

Eliot’s jaw clenches, and he stares off. 

“El?”

Penny wants to leave. He’s tired of the drama and the heartache. 

“He _was_ my partner. I can’t-” Eliot pinches the bridge of his nose. “I owe you the story, Bambi. I just can’t right now. But you, Penny, listen to me when I say that you need to go back to Julia. Don’t leave her alone. If she _really_ wants you gone, she’ll let you know, but for now, stay with her until she knows what she wants. Until _you_ know what you want.”

Penny feels his eyes burn as the wards around Eliot’s mind start to crack. He sees the wooden door Eliot had kept himself barricaded behind while the monster had free reign in his body. Eliot pushes him out a second later with a snarl.

Penny holds up his hands placatingly. “I didn’t do anything. Your mind is still healing, and I can’t always help what I see, or when I see it.”

Margo steps between them. “You should go. I appreciate everything you’ve done, but—”

Penny shakes his head. “I’ve got it. I’ll stop by in a week?”

Margo looks over her shoulder to where Eliot has limped off into the trees. “Maybe make it two. Or as close as you can make to that given the time difference.”

“Got it. Take care.”

“Wait. Penny.” Margo reaches out and grasps his arm. “Are you sure Eliot’s memory is okay? I genuinely don’t know anything about him and Q aside from our one hook up. If there had been more, Eliot wouldn’t have kept it a secret from me.”

Penny hesitates and shakes his head. “Look. I can’t speak for Eliot, and after all the mindfucks he’s been through, I’m not gonna start telling his secrets. All I know is what Quentin had in his head, and that boy is shit at keeping his wards up.”

Margo laughs. “He was.”

“Was, yeah. Which apparently means, you might not have the whole story. And Q didn’t either.”

“Okay, Penny.” She leans up on her toes and kisses him on the cheek. “El’s right. Take care of Julia as much as she’ll let you. I’ve got El.”

“That’s a given.”

“It’s good you know it.” 

“Margo. Take care of yourself too.”

“ _That’s_ a given.”

He watches them walk off. Thinks about fucking off and never coming back. 

Breathes the opium air in deep.

Penny travels back to earth.

**Margo**

Margo is done. 

She is so. Fucking. Done.

For _fucks_ sake.

“Welcome home,” Eliot says dryly at her side, and she loves him, but she is going to strangle him. “Weren’t you _just_ here? Why would Fillory even let us back, when it so _clearly_ doesn’t want us here.”

The farmers have pushed past, squinting back at them suspiciously, because clearly their dull farmer lives haven’t afforded them the opportunity to meet anyone high class before. Never mind the royalty they so clearly are.

“Josh is a funny man,” Margo grits out. “You heard them, he apparently was going by Josh the Fresh Prince. Maybe he finally got his _Fillory Punked_ thing going and we’re being filmed right now.”

“Josh is good, but he’s not Ashton Kutcher good,” Eliot responds. He’s leaning heavily on his cane, squinting at their latest bullshit. “How would he even get a camera crew here?”

“El, be serious please,” Margo snaps. She watches his jaw clench and wonders if she’s pushing too hard. She keeps fluctuating between kid gloves and a firm hand, and she’s tired of feeling indecisive. “I _was_ just here, and _while_ I was here, I saw Fen, time was normal, and there was no dark king.” 

“And apparently that was three hundred years ago,” he snaps back. “Long live the dark king.”

“That can’t actually be true though,” she snarls back. “If three hundred years have actually passed, then that would mean-” Margo stops, unwilling to voice it outloud.

“It would mean your boyfriend is dead,” Eliot finishes. 

The fucker sounds almost cheerful.

Margo takes a deep breath.

She’s _not_ going to kill him.

Probably.

**Kady**

She helped them find their words. She stayed for the tears and the hugs, and when the tears and the hugs were done, she retreated to the upstairs bathroom, dodging what looked to be an awkward cuddle session between Alice and Eliot in the living room. She braces herself against the sink and breathes deep. 

She’s never been good at this. 

Which is ridiculous because she’s had a lot of practice. 

Kady wasn’t close to Q, but the loss still hit her, because she’s been losing a lot of people. She hadn’t been present when Penny dragged Alice back from the mirror world, but she _had_ been there for the aftermath. She hadn’t been present when Margo hauled a gut bleeding Eliot back to earth, but she _had_ been there in the waiting room as Margo alternately raged, and kept statue still. She hadn’t been present when Pete was infected with the bloodworm, but she _had_ been present when he stumbled to her penthouse building and asked the doorman to call up because he couldn’t let himself in through the magic locks without dying. 

She hadn’t been there when Q made a stupid play, but she was there to help everyone find the words to mourn.

Kady turns on the cold tap and splashes water in her face, raising her eyes to the mirror. 

She looks exhausted and feels it too, in every inch of her bones.

She can’t help but wonder how differently things would have gone if she had actually been present for any one of those shitty moments. 

Kady turns off the water and glances out the window to the simmering bonfire. She’s unsurprised to see Julia still outside, hunched close to the flames. She wonders if there’s going to be anything left of Julia when it burns out. 

She’s been too late to help Julia too many times to count and she feels the weight of that even now. She’s tired of being late and the last to know and outside of the story.

Kady flicks the lights off in the bathroom and stares blankly into the darkened mirror and what she can still see of her reflection. Wonders what the mirror world is like, if it might not be easier to slip away into that grey world she's heard so much about instead of this pretty, bright and broken one.

With one last glance at Julia from the second floor window, Kady slips from the physical kid’s cottage and away into the night. She slips out of the cottage without running into anyone and sets off towards the perimeter of the campus. It's dark and quiet and she fills her lungs with silence. The further away she gets from the mess of Brakebills, the quicker she feels the mess inside her bubble up to the surface. She has to set down these people and focus on helping the hedges, since it’s very clear that no one else is willing to take up the task.

Kady will _not_ let herself be late with the hedges. She’s going to find a cure for the bloodworm parasite, and get the Reed’s marks removed from every last one of them. 

She’s almost at the edge of the Brakebills wards when she’s caught off guard by a figure in the dark. She crouches down bringing her arms straight in front of her face, hands curved back, battle magic thrumming, barely contained. 

Its Fogg. He's sprawled on a boulder, leaning back against a tree. He blinks at her before raising his flask into her line of sight. “Drink?” he offers.

“Fogg!” she snaps, dropping her hands to her sides. “What the fuck!”

He sighs, and stretches out further with the flask. “Yes, yes. I’m sorry. Have a drink.”’

She snatches the flask out of his hand, mostly to hide the shake in her hands from her suppressed magic. 

“Where did you learn battle magic anyway?” He asks. “Not at Brakebills, that’s for damn sure.”

She sighs and takes a long pull of his liquor. “Does it matter?”

“I’m curious,” he admits. “We banned battle magic from the curriculum for a reason.”

“Students dying?” Kady guesses drily, passing his flask back.

“Yes. A terrible affair.”

“It surprises me that student deaths actually ended up changing anything around here.”

“For your information, under my tenure as dean, the mortality rate is at the lowest it’s ever been in two cententures.”

“Didn’t you just lose the entire freshman class?” 

His expression doesn’t change, exactly, but Fogg seems to shrink down under her gaze. “Might have,” he mutters.

It pisses her off. “It took me five years to become proficient in battle magic, and your grad programs typically run three years, right? You don’t study to become a doctor in three years. There’s undergrad, medical school, and residencies. Seven to eight years of study. Rushing a discipline like battle magic can _only_ lead to tragedy.” She shakes her head. “Honestly, your school is designed to set people up to kill themselves.”

“You managed to teach _them_ how to use it in a matter of weeks.” He sounds like he’s sulking.

“I didn’t,” she says flatly. “I gave them a dangerous shortcut that ended up turning Alice into a niffin. The only reason any of them got better at it was because of real life and death bullshit. Classroom cramming and pass fail pressure will never teach that.”

Fogg considers this and nods. “I agree. That’s why I worked so hard to have it removed from the curriculum.”

Kady shrugs and finally moves to sit near him. “I was taught by my mom and a few other hedges."

“Hedges, huh.” Fogg sighs. He tips his flask back and forth.

“No need to sound so surprised,” Kady snaps. “I’d think you’d be used to us showing you up by now.”

“It’s not that,” Fogg protests. “I mean not _completely_. I’m just questioning why _we_ needed a pixie to teach battle magic, and hedges have managed just fine.”

She shrugs. “Your lists are wrong? Whatever magic you send out that scans the world either isn't strong enough or is keyed to only look for certain kinds of magic, even though, as a professional, you should know ability manifests at all sorts of ages. Do you ever check back in with anyone? Or you know, did it ever occur to you, that hedges you rejected have set up protections to keep your school from finding them or their kids?”

Fogg blinks. “No. I can’t say that I have.”

Kady pushes up to her feet. “That’s your problem then. After all, I was never officially invited to Brakebills, but you couldn’t tell the difference, and, unless I’m wrong, which I’m not, no one would have noticed.”

Kady is almost through the trees, when Fogg calls her back. She grits her teeth and turns to find him on his feet, holding out a key. “This is for you.”

She feels suspicious. “I didn’t graduate from your school.”

“Yes, well. If half my students were as competent at their graduation as you were when I expelled you, then I’d have an even lower mortality rate on my hands. Stay in touch. Let me know if I can help in your save-the-hedges crusade.”

Kady rocks back on her heels in surprise. “You want to help?”

“I'd really rather you didn’t sound so surprised.”

“Hard _not_ to be. You’re not exactly known for your charitable actions.”

He leans forward into a mock bow. “Yes well, this is me trying to make amends.”

She laughs. “Pretty sure you skipped a couple steps there, pal.”

Fogg sighs deeply. “I will let you know if I find anything that can help mitigate the bloodworms. Now get off my campus and be the fearless leader of the hedges, or whatever your day job is.”

“Fuck you too,” Kady says cheerfully. “You better keep your word. Maybe in return, we can help you not run a school that's not a death trap.”

“Deal.”

She steps off into the woods, feeling the barrier shift around her and settle back into place. She rubs her thumb over the edges of the key, surprised at how happy she is to have it in her hands. 

It looks like she might be sticking around in the lives of these people, at least for a little longer.

**Julia**

The feel of magic coursing through her fingers is simultaneously the most wonderful and painful thing she has ever experienced in her life. Reynard fades to oblivion, her shade fades to oblivion, James, Marina, her family, all fade. 

All of it except the sizzling rush of power and the pounding aching swamp of letting go of Quentin. 

“Magic,” she gasps, and the sound of her voice hurts scraping out of her throat. She holds her fingers stretched out as far as she can from her body, as though she’s scared of catching fire, even though all she wants _is_ to catch fire. The cards are suspended and Quentin had told her this story. Of the test he needed to pass to get into Brakebills, how Fogg had spooked him into letting go, into performing magic impressive enough to pass the board of trustees. The tiny parts of her brain wonder at what she might have done to be accepted had she been provided the same provocation, and she knows that now she can go track down Fogg and get those answers, to find out all the little bits of her that have been lost and scattered and build a greater picture of who she might have been and wasn’t allowed to be, but she can’t speak about it because—

“Magic,” and it’s a sob this time, and Penny is rushing up to her side and his eyes are wide and full of wonder. The cards begin to spiral. She lays her hand flat and they shuffle into her palm as if she has always had an affinity for cards and as the last one settles face up, she stares down at the king of hearts, and why on earth does it look like Quentin, why would her mind do that and yet—

“Julia,” Penny breathes. He has reached out to her, but he doesn’t touch, because this Penny would never, not without a notarized document of permission, touch her. Her thoughts must be leaking out, the surge of magic making the wards Alice had given her fluctuate.

“I don’t—” she says, and she had kept her tears in while they gathered around the fire, as Kady had given them the words, and she thought she couldn’t cry, because she has spent days crying, but her face is wet, and somewhere in the jumble of her thoughts she must have provided a notarized document of permission because Penny’s hands are on her shoulders, sliding up her neck, cradling her face, fingers sliding into her hair. He tips her head up to meet his gaze and she is a slack-jawed snotty mess, but he has seen her so much worse, and the words are trip trapping in her mouth and she can't get them out, nothing but another gasping hard “I _don’t—_ ”

“Magic,” Penny answers, and his eyes are crinkled up and so so sad, because he knows and she doesn’t _want_ to know, but knows anyway. 

“Magic comes from pain,” they say at the same time, and Julia turns her head away, to see if everyone has come back because it seems as though more people have joined them, that someone else has whispered with them.

A sob tears out of her throat, and she falls against Penny because she knows he’s good for it, that he’ll hold her up, that he’ll keep her steady as they sink down to the ground.

“I don’t want it,” she says against his throat. “Why does magic mean that Q has to be—”

He holds her tighter and doesn’t say anything, because he’s good at knowing when to say things and when not to say things. He holds her tighter, as she looks down at the deck of cards. 

“I wanted to burn his fucking nerd cards,” she says, though she’s not sure if she’s speaking out loud or only in her mind. Penny hums along all the same, so she figures it doesn’t matter. 

“I didn’t see him with them much here, but in my timeline I felt the same way.”

Julia runs her thumb over the face of the suicide king, feeling vaguely ill at what her mind conjured. Penny turns his head against her hair to look down at the cards in her hand. 

“You can ask,” he says quietly.

She thinks about it, about Q during the past awful months. The quiet, empty, focus that had kept him burning, and all the moments in between when she’d catch him vacant, hollow and staring at rooftops. She wants to ask.

Their bonfire has shrunk down considerably, and all the parts of her not held by Penny or facing the embers are beginning to burn with cold. She can still feel the magic thrumming in her veins.

She doesn’t ask.

**Quentin**

_It’s quiet._

_He breathes deep. Holds it._

_Breathes out._

_Slowly, he opens his eyes._

_It even_ looks _quiet. Which is strange, because he didn’t know that colors could make a sound. Or that this was the sound of white. He squints, and feels his mouth turn down in a…_

_Frown._

_White is wrong. It seems to be changing, slowly moving, blooming into a pale yellow, the sound changing from quiet to a low trilling of bird song._

_He blinks and the yellow grows stronger. The birds louder._

_It’s nice. Pleasant._

_He closes his eyes and lets the colors wash over him, lets their changing sounds soothe him and ground him._

_him… his…_

_Soul?_

_“Hey, curly Q.”_

_He startles and opens his eyes, turning to look around. It’s no longer just yellow. While he’d been standing still it seemed that the confluence of colors he had been listening to had settled into a picture, which even as he stares, is shifting into focus. An array of greens and browns painted itself across the horizon with further greens sharpening into little knives around his feet._

_No, not knives. Blades?_

_“It’s grass, curly Q.”_

_He can’t find the voice, no matter where he turns his eyes, and part of him wonders if that should be alarming. He has an idea that disembodied voices are a bad thing._

_“Just give it a moment, son.”_

_“Okay,” he answers and jumps at the sound of his own voice. “I wasn’t sure if I was crazy or not.”_

_“There’s some Harry Potter quote I should be saying to you right now, but I’ve never been good at remembering things like that.”_

_“That’s… okay?”_

_The voice is closer to him now, and he can see a collection of colors solidifying a few feet away from him, settling into a person shape. The longer he watches, the more the colors refine themselves into a form that seems to be familiar, into a man who looked… who looked…_

_“I am your father, Q.” The man, his father, says. “Now there’s a quote I can always remember.”_

_He stares at his father blankly._

_“Guess the afterlife hasn’t improved the quality of my dad jokes,” he sighs. “Come, sit down son.”_

_“Where—” but even as he asks, colors around him snap into solidity, and he is standing in a blue grey room with worn grey couches and an overstuffed chair tucked up right behind his knees, so it is with barely a thought that he collapses back down into the…_

_Soft._

_Into the softness._

_He runs his hands along the grey under his thighs, and the soft is very soft and maybe worn? As if many hands have run across the soft before._

_“Had that chair since before I married your mother.”_

_“Mother?”_

_His father sighs. “Would you like to see her instead? She did say that I was shit with words.”_

_These are the first words which ring strange in his chest and he frowns, the walls of the room sharpening, feeling rising up from his toes._

_“Mom’s here?”_

_“Yes. Also no?” His dad waves his hand vaguely. “If this feels like moments after you walked through the door, then she’s not here. If this feels like centuries after, then she is. Both things are true here.”_

_Q leans his head back against the chair and closes his eyes. There’s something pressing against his mind. Something bright and pink and sharp._

_A headache._

_“Why would mom think that she would be better able to speak to me about… all of this?”_

_“Because I’ve never been good with words curly Q.”_

_That falls flat and dull and sickly green in his ears. It’s… “Not true. You’ve always been the best at them. Mom never listened.” Quentin opens his eyes and looks towards his father. “I remember that._ That’s _true.”_

_His father smiles back tremulously. “I had hoped you would feel that way.”_

_Quentin nods. “I do feel that way.” He looks around. He recognizes this place now. It’s the living room at his dad’s house. “Why are we here?”_

_“In this house, you mean? Well, I picked this house because I thought it would make you the most comfortable. It’s familiar to both of us.”_

_Quentin thinks about comfort and nods slowly. It_ is _comfortable here, although he can feel his mind trying to remind him of another place he had been even more comfortable. He can’t quite place it._

_“Why are we here?” he asks again._

_“You mean in the afterlife?”_

_“Yes? No. I think I mean, I’m not where I was expecting to be.”_

_His dad grins. “_ That’s _why I’m here. You’re right, this isn’t the usual sort of place for a person to end up.”_

_“Why? I chose to go through the door, didn’t I?”_

_“You did yes, but there are still a lot of options for you as far as which one you step through next.”_

_“Next?”_

_His father frowns and seems to be thinking about his words. “When you stepped through, you weren't settled on where you were going next.”_

_Quentin thinks about this and lore from his life seeps into his mind, spiraling and orange. “So I'm a restless spirit?”_

_“That_ is _one way you could go.”_

 _He frowns. "That doesn't make sense. Meeting with Penny,_ that _settled my soul. I_ felt _it settle. He said..." Quentin trails off._

_"What did he say, Q?"_

_"He said: 'Learn to love the mysteries man, you’re finally just you. You’ll see.'" Quentin scowls. "Do you mean to tell me that even dead, Penny is still being a dick to me?"_

_His father laughs. "That might be a harsh assessment. He was teasing? Maybe?"_

_"So then what's the point of this? I was ready to move on. I_ am _ready to move on. I want to be_ done _with this life."_

 _"That's the problem, curly Q. Life doesn't seem to be done with you._ "

_“So that's why I'm here?”_

_“Yes.” His father smiles fondly and looks about their old living room. “This space is just to give you room to consider all the options as they are presented to you.”_

_Quentin follows his glance around the room, eyes landing on the mirror above the credenza._

_“Eliot?”_

_He is up and across the room before he can sort out the taste and feel and cacophony of color crashing through his mind at the explosion of sensations brought on by that name._

_Eliot._

_Eliot is staring back at him from the other side of the credenza. He looks beautiful and awful and so very exhausted. Eliot frowns at him, before leaning over the sink and splashing his face with water. He picks up a comb and starts to pull it through his hair. Quentin frowns and leans around the credenza looking for a door to the washroom, a window or hallway or—_

_“He’s not here.”_

_Quentin turns around and feels a rush of panicky white anger bubbling up. “What? Why can I see him then?”_

_His father stands and joins him in looking through the mirror. Quentin has an urge to throw his arms across the glass. Eliot hates being seen at anything less than his best, and the hollows under his eyes show that he’s as far from that as can be reached._

_“This is what I meant about choices,” his father says. “Until they’re made, you’re here. This place has windows which let you look into the world of the living.”_

_Quentin looks back into the mirror. Eliot has turned and is looking at the bathroom door, where Margo’s voice can be heard calling out. They watch as Eliot slowly makes his way out into the bedroom, limping and holding his side stiffly._

_Quentin feels angry and turns to his father, who is, inexplicably, smiling. “This isn’t the choice I made when I went through that door. If I realized I was going to be stuck in my childhood house, watching Eliot suffer through windows, I wouldn't have gone through!”_

_“I know, curly Q. This isn’t the choice you made, but there’s a few more which need to be made until you can move on.”_

_“What choices? Whatever they are, I’ll make them. I don’t want to watch their lives go on like this. I wanted to be done with life. This, this is just cruel.”_

_“It’s not supposed to be cruel, but I can see why you feel it is. The choices left aren’t yours to make. You don’t have to look through any windows, and you don’t have to stay in this house.” He points to the front door, which Quentin is certain hadn't been there a moment ago. “You can wait anywhere you like while things work themselves out.”_

_Quentin looks back through the mirror. Eliot and Margo are leaning close together and he can’t make out what they're saying, but the pain in Eliot is clear to see, and all he wants is to help in some way._

_“El needs his cane,” he mutters, looking around as if to find it in his childhood home. “He just had his cane when Penny took me to see them.”_

_“What cane?”_

_“The one we made in Fillory,” Quentin says quietly as the peaceful sunny yellow memory comes back. “He found the wood and I carved a wolf on it because he was always going on about how Jon Snow was his favorite kind of pretty emo boy and—”_

_He trails off because Margo is walking towards him, focused on something he can’t see. She ducks out of sight and returns clutching Eliot’s cane. The very one he has been describing. He turns in astonishment to his father, only to find himself alone in the living room. Looking back into the mirror, he sees that Eliot is freshly pale and reaching out for the cane slowly. He looks over Margo’s shoulder into the bathroom, and for a moment their eyes seem to meet, but as Quentin reaches out to touch the glass, the surface ripples and he’s only staring into his own pale face._

_Quentin steps back and falls onto the couch, alone, head spinning._

_“Huh.”_  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started furiously writing this after the season 4 finale, where it then languished on my laptop. Before I knew it, season 5 was airing and I figured I'd see if there was anything inspired I might want to pull from it, for this fic. The answer is a pretty solid no, lol. So here's to another season 5 au.
> 
> Shoutout to my best friend [salt sanford](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltsanford) for being my beta and fielding a million questions and anxieties. U da bes


	2. Chapter 2

_Keep walking, keep talking, keep climbing to the summit_   
_Keep shaming, keep taming, those voices in my head_   
_Straight face, same game, I can’t shake what I’m becoming_   
_No pain and no gain, yeah, I’ve fallen out of line_

_Settling down, setting down to the summit_   
_Looking around over the clouts all alone_   
_Waiting around, waiting around all I wanted_   
_Was my home_

_-The Summit_ , Avi Kaplan

**Julia**

If she lies very very still, she feels no pain at all.

Julia knows this, because she’s been lying in bed staring at the ceiling for hours, testing the theory out.

It’s also the reason she’s been letting her phone buzz away on the nightstand. It has been rattling on and off since Penny brought her back from Quentin’s memorial, but she hasn’t been able to find the will to do anything about it. The same way she can’t bring herself to do anything about her rediscovered magic.

Her body is alight with the thrum of magic. If she so much as twitches her hand she feels it trying to burn itself out of her skin, pricking painfully from her fingertips, shooting up into her elbow. She can’t quite remember if it hurt in this same way when she was a hedge or a magician or even a goddess. It’s so close to the surface that she feels like if she slips up once, loses any kind of control, she might blow something to smithereens.

Her phone rattles again on the nightstand.

Distantly, she hears people moving in the penthouse. The decision to come back here had been made for her, and some part of her is happy to have had the choice taken out of her hands. She’s _less_ happy to have to have her friends around to bear witness to what is likely going to be an ugly, drawn out play between rage and depression until she gets a hold of her feelings about both Q and the magic. 

Her phone rattles again, right off the nightstand and onto the bed.

Julia closes her eyes with muted despair, the sound quieter, but the sensation of the vibrations now rippling against her skin.

“Fine,” she groans, turning her head slowly to where her phone is lying near her outstretched hand, “but if someone is dying again, then I officially give up.”

She fumbles for the phone and holds it above her face squinting at the cracked screen. Ten missed calls, four voicemails, twenty seven texts. 

All from her sister.

The phone slips from her hand and smacks down hard on her face before she can turn away. Julia scrambles for her phone, rubbing at her forehead in confusion. For a brief, hysterical moment, she can’t even pull up a picture of her sister in her mind. 

Or when she last spoke to her.

She thumbs the screen open, quickly flicking through the slew of texts.

_Answer the phone!_

_Where are you?_

_James is in the hospital._

_Where are you?!_

_Pick up the phone!_

Frowning, Julia closes out of the texts and swipes the oldest voicemail open, pressing the phone to her ear.

_“Julia, I’m at Bellevue Hospital. Trauma ward. James was in a car accident two nights ago. Call me back.”_

She clicks the next one.

_“Julia, this isn’t funny. James is in a coma, and you're his emergency contact. Where are you?”_

The next.

_“Look, I know you’ve been playing this game where you think you’re not part of the family anymore, but you need to come through. James isn’t in a good way, and I can’t help. Get your ass here.”_

The last.

_“They had to call in James’ parents. Are you really going to let those assholes have any say over him? You know what it took for him to get out from under their thumb, Julia. Get your ass to Bellevue. Now.”_

Julia lets the phone drop the bed, not quite sure what it is she’s feeling. Never mind her sister, when was the last time she had thought of _James?_ The last time she had even seen him was at that bakery, fresh off of whatever memory mojo Marina had slapped him with. 

She’s feeling the pain a little less sharply, so she supposes that’s something. Julia drags herself from bed, phone in hand, and shuffles out of the room. She makes her way to the kitchen, feeling achy and sore as if she had spent the previous day working out, instead of falling apart. Penny is sitting at the kitchen island and she sits at the far end.

“Morning,” Penny says quietly.

“Morning, Penny,” Julia says, managing to drag a smile to her face. She drops her eyes back to her phone, reading through the texts again, slower.

“Who was on the phone?”

Julia glances up from the screen to blink at Penny. He stares right back, bringing his coffee mug up to his mouth, looking for all the world as if this were the most interesting thing to happen to him all day. 

“Is it any of your business?”

He rolls his eyes at her but doesn’t seem offended. Julia’s not sure how she earned his presence and patience. Or what _his_ Julia did to earn it.

“Of course not,” he says, setting his coffee back down. “I was just curious cause your phone’s been buzzing for the last three hours. Must have been important?”

“So what, you’ve just been listening at my door like a creep?”

Penny jerks back as if she struck him, the first signs of anger drawing down over his eyes. He opens his mouth to respond when Kady walks into the kitchen looking tired.

“Chill Julia, he wasn’t being a creep,” she says, making a beeline for the coffee pot. “If he hadn’t asked I was gonna because the whole house could hear that shit rattling on the dresser for hours.”

Julia flushes and looks back down at her phone. “Sorry,” she mutters.

“It’s cool,” Penny says. He holds his mug out to Kady, who tops it up automatically. Julia wonders if things are awkward between them or if she’s just projecting. 

“Want some?” Kady asks, lifting the pot. Julia nods, and watches as Kady pours a cup, stirring in the hazelnut creamer hidden in the back of the fridge. 

“Thanks,” Julia says, taking the cup from her hands. It’s perfect when she takes a sip.

“So who _was_ trying to reach you?” Kady asks, leaning against the counter. “It must have been important. Do you need help with anything?”

“Oh, no,” Julia laughs, as the news about James floods her head again. She’s not sure what, if anything, she should do about the situation. “It was just my sister.”

“Kenzie?” Penny asks, a big smile spreading across his face. “How’s she doing?”

Julia sets her cup with a loud clatter, coffee sloshing over the sides, and stares at him. “What?”

Penny furrows his brow. “Mackenzie? How has she been?”

Julia stares blankly at him, feeling something rise up from the bottom of her chest. It’s not the first time this has happened, Penny expressing knowledge of something about her that she never told him and she knows it won’t be the last. It never stops upsetting her. She breathes out hard from her nose, and tries to control her voice as she says, “I never told you I had a sister.”

Penny freezes, clearly realizing that he’s overstepped. “You’re right.”

“Of course I’m _right_ ,” she snaps. 

Penny throws his hands up and leans away. “I’m sorry. It would be just as weird to pretend I didn’t know her.”

Julia exhales and tries to keep her cool. “Okay. Fine. How do you know my sister then?”

Penny looks like he wants to blip out of the room, and she supposes it means something that he only takes a deep breath and settles in. “We used to all get dinner like once a month,” he says. “Not long after my Julia and I started dating officially. It was important to her that I know the one part of her family she actually liked.”

Julia knows he has no reason to lie, but the idea sounds so absurd. “Well _this_ Julia hasn’t seen her in like, three years.”

“That’s… huh,” Penny blows out a breath. “Well that’s something then. Um, can I ask what it was about? Anything serious since it’s been so long since you’ve spoken?”

Julia frowns down at her phone trying to come up with a reason not to answer, but draws a blank. “About this guy James,” she says finally. “He’s in the hospital.”

Of all the responses she expected, the flash of genuine concern across his face was pretty far down there. “Oh damn. Is he doing okay?”

“Are you serious?” she snaps. “You know my ex boyfriend? What, did we also go out to dinner all the time too?”

Penny sighs like he knows he’s in trouble. “Yes. Yes we did. You wanted to stay friends with him and it was hard not to like him. He’s a good dude.”

“Wait a second.” Kady has been glancing between them like this is the greatest show she has ever seen. She turns to stare at Julia, eyes narrow in thought. “Is this the same boyfriend whose memory Marina erased?”

“ _What?_ ” Penny exclaims. 

Julia nods glumly. “Yeah. Marina’s very special brand of punishment. She banned me from learning magic from her or anyone else, and when I couldn’t let it go, she wiped me from James’ memory. I stopped talking to my Kenzie after that because I didn’t want the same thing to happen to her. Then, well, Reynard happened and honestly I hadn’t thought much about it since.” 

“Yeah,” Penny says slowly. “I can see why.”

“So what does him being in the hospital have to do with you?” Kady asks.

“Apparently I’m still his emergency contact?” Julia sighs. “I don’t know, after they couldn’t get a hold of me, they tracked down Mackenzie. I don’t know what I’m gonna do about it.”

“You should go see him,” Penny says, nodding. “Even if it’s just to help get him in touch with the right people. I don’t know what his relationship with his parents is like here, but if it’s anything like what it was like in my timeline, then he probably doesn’t have anyone else. C’mon, I’ll go with you.”

Julia can feel her temper unraveling and she doesn’t know how the same guy who was so understanding last night about when and what to say, is just blowing shit up left and right like it’s going out of style. 

“I need,” Julia says, “for everyone to stop acting like they _know_ me.” 

She pushes away from the counter and walks out calmly out of the kitchen.

**Margo**

She is _not_ dressed for sneaking around. Margo counts it as a point of pride that even in a backwater world like Fillory, she has managed to never be anything less than a ten. Unless you count the time she thought Eliot was dead. Which, of course, she doesn’t.

It’s possible, however, that stiletto boots and a pink fur coat are a poor choice for sneaking.

Not that she had expected to be _sneaking_ . She had _expected_ to catch a carriage to Whitespire once they had hit the Kings’ Highway.

She peers over the top of the embankment into the dark underbrush and dense trees which, if she remembers correctly, spans about a half mile to the foot of the castle. She’s going to have to do something about this jacket.

“You should probably do something about that jacket,” Eliot says from beside her. He’s leaning against a tree, looking bored. 

Margo closes her eyes and counts to ten.

“Unless getting caught is like, the _point_ of this exercise.”

To _twenty_.

“El, baby,” she grits out, turning to glare at him in the gathering gloom, “either shut the fuck up and help me, or shut the fuck and _don’t_.” 

He waves his hand lazily and settles in further against the tree.

“ _Don’t,_ it is,” she mutters darkly, turning back around. It had taken them the better part of the day to approach Whitespire, keeping off the Kings’ Highway after their first encounter with the locals. They had only run into a few more people on their way, but the only thing they discovered was that even mentioning the Dark King caused almost everyone to shit their panties and absolutely everyone refused to describe this king further. Not even if they were hot or not.

“This is some You-Know-Who _bull_ shit,” she grouches. Margo climbs down from the embankment she had been peeking over, struggles internally, then finally begins to peel off her coat, folding it carefully. She debates handing it to Eliot for safe keeping, but judging by the way he’s currently fondling that _ridiculous_ cane, it’s clear he doesn’t have much in the way of priorities. 

“I’m coming back for you baby,” she says, petting the sleeve. She looks up to see Eliot staring, face almost, not quite, judging her. “I told _you_ to shut up.”

He rolls his eyes. “Yes Bambi. I heard you the first time. I’ll just stay here and hmm, keep watch? I’ll caw twice if there’s any sign of danger.”

She’s not sure if all this attitude is something she should find alarming. So far, he’s not trying to drink himself to death, but she’s well versed in the subtle ways a person can destroy themselves.

“You do that,” she says, turning back to face the embankment. She gives herself a little shake, checks to make sure her axes are secure against her sides, and climbs back up. After taking a moment to be sure that no one has appeared in the past minute, she begins to creep through the underbrush, closer to Whitespire.

Margo hadn’t been much for walking the grounds during her rule, but it’s clear they have been sorely neglected. She is forced to take her time, picking her feet up over creeping vines, stepping both over and around rocks and boulders. There is a pervasive quiet in the air, and Margo shivers, annoyed to be feeling nervous in the first place. She can’t believe that Fillory is playing these games still. That after all the ways she fought for this world, it still persists in trying to throw her out.

She twists her hands around her brands.

After the way she _was_ thrown out.

As if prompted by the thought, she feels the scars prickle and stops to look down at them uneasily. When she had blipped in earlier with Penny, she had been quick, marching right into Quentin’s old room to dig up his crown. Fen had joined her in the search after a servant had tipped her off to Margo’s arrival and the situation had been explained. They’d taken the time to exchange the highlights: Eliot’s survival, Q’s death, and the contingent of mermaids who were holding water ways hostage in protest of the prisoner being kept in the dungeon. She hadn’t noticed any issues with the brands during that time before Penny turned up the crown and they had to make their way back for the service.

“How the fuck has it not even been a day,” Margo mutters out loud. She edges in closer, picking out the remnants of the overgrown path in the dirt, barely visible if she hadn’t already known what to be looking for. “ _This_ did not happen in a day.”

Which _could_ mean that maybe all the stories they had been told were true. That somehow, between the one trip and the next, three hundred years had slipped by, and some Dark King had taken over, leaving a terrified population, and castle twice the size it used to be, and shitty overgrown gardens. That Fen and Josh were dead.

 _Nope_ , she thinks darkly _, not going there._ She tries to swallow a yelp as her heel gets tangled in a creeping vine and she wipes out.

“Ugh,” she splutters, as she pushes up on her hands as quickly as possible. She feels the dirt, soggy and soft, soaking in through the fabric of her leggings. Margo reaches back to see her boot tangled in the undergrowth, a slender vine coiled twice around her heel. “Nuh uh,” she growls, yanking forward hard against the roots. “I am not about to be eaten alive by some fucking plants.” They give way easily under the pressure and Margo gets to her feet quickly, kicking at the vines. She unstraps her axes and grips them tightly, moving forward with less care.

“Fuck stealthy,” she says to the night air. “Banishment or no, I am former High King Margo the _Destroyer,_ and I will _not_ walk quietly in the night.” She hears nothing and sees nothing, and she’s starting to feel that creeping impulse of recklessness bubble up from her gut. 

“Hey! Dark King! Come out, come out wherever you are!” She sees about ten yards in front of her that the trees thin abruptly, so she hurries through, into a small clearing which she remembers used to lead to the west gate of the castle. “What the fuck,” she mutters, coming to a stop, staring up into the night.

Stretching as high as she can see into the sky are twisting, creeping, spiked vines which are so intertwined she can barely see through them. Vines that she is absolutely positive were not here on the way down. There is no way she and Eliot missed a vine covered castle. 

“Very funny Dark King!” she calls out. “This is your idea of a welcome party? What are we trying to accomplish here?”

Her voice echoes back at her, and the woods all around are very still.

“Well all _right_ then, good thing I’ve got my babies with me.” Margo adjusts her grips on the handles, and considers going to get Eliot for backup. Just as quickly, she puts the idea aside because she’s not sure if he’d be able to help, or if she’d even trust him to watch her back right now. She steps closer and studies the thick vines, making note of the spikes and the shiny, almost wet texture of them. She raises her arm, and brings her hand down swiftly, ax slicing through the vine like butter. Margo waits, tense, but nothing happens. 

“Well that was anticlimactic,” she says, bringing her arm back for another whack.

As if waiting for her to say it, the vines explode outward, spewing a viscous fluid that splatters into her face. She splutters and tries to spit it out, stepping backward as the vines begin writhing, snapping at her arms and wrapping around her legs, pulling her to the ground. “Oh _hell_ no,” she snarls, swiping out with her axes. “I am _not_ about to tentacle vine raped outside of my own _castle_.” The brands on her wrists flash hot with pain, and she feels the thorns on the vines cut into her skin as they begin dragging her in towards the old west gate. More of the fluid inside the vines drips into her face, and the world takes on a shimmery gold hue, flashing sparks across the bits of sky she can still make out through the vines.

“El! _Eliot!”_ she screams out. _“_ Caw _caw_ , motherfucker!” 

**Penny**

Penny sits frozen as Julia storms out of the kitchen.

He can’t catch a _break_. The pain and fury hanging off of Julia hammers at his head, and he knows she doesn’t mean to do it.

Even though it actually seems like she does.

“Yikes,” Kady says slowly. “Not good when the girlfriend storms off like that.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t see _you_ stopping her,” he snaps back, dropping his spoon into his now soggy cereal, milk splashing out over the counter. “And she’s _not_ my girlfriend.”

“Well she’s not _my_ girlfriend either.” 

Penny narrows his eyes, reaching out to touch her mind, but it’s locked up, tight as ever.

“Rude,” Kady says, but she doesn’t sound mad. “Ask a person out first, pal.”

“Yeah, _not_ gonna happen,” Penny mutters, looking back over his shoulder where Julia had disappeared to. “It’s weird enough that you were in love with some version of me.”

He closes his eyes as says the words, feeling the press of Kady’s response before she says: “Like you were in love with some version of Julia?” 

And just. 

_That._

It was a thing and it was always gonna be a thing and it is fast becoming clear that he will not be able to escape it. 

“Like you're in love with _this_ version of Julia,” he says back. The way Kady doesn’t react at all tells him he’s not far off the mark. “Huh. Oh, _shit_.”

She rolls her eyes and leans further across the counter. “Look pal, I’m just saying that you need to lay off the factoids about the girl you used to know. No one likes hearing about their significant other’s ex.”

“There’s no good option here, _pal_!” Penny says, trying not to yell but not doing a good job of it. “Either I be as honest as I can about what I know or I go full psycho hedge and try to reinvent an entire relationship based on creepy insider knowledge.”

Kady wrinkles her nose in clear disgust. “Gross, what?”

Penny pushes away from the counter and starts pacing. “That’s Marina’s plan. She’s all like, we’re refugees, we gotta use every advantage to survive.”

“You hang out with Marina?” There’s an edge to Kady’s voice.

He shrugs. “Well we hung out that one time when the horomancer tried to abandon us in another timeline. So you know, we text.”

Kady looks pissed. “You should stay away from her. Marina will use you up and spit you out.”

“ _Hey,_ ” Penny snaps, and the anger that sparks through him takes him by surprise. “Either you acknowledge that we’re different people or you don’t, but it can’t be both. I’m not your Penny, and if you can wrap your head around that, you can wrap your head around Marina not being the same person either. We’re from different fucking worlds.”

“ _Timelines,_ actually.”

Penny whips around to see Alice standing at the edge of the kitchen. “Timeline, world, what the fuck _ever!_ ”

Alice glares at him, a faint sneer pulling up the side of her face. “You guys are being really loud.”

“Sorry, Alice,” Kady offers. “Ethical debate getting out hand, you know how it is.”

Alice scowls and directs her focus to the coffee pot and makes a not quite human growling noise. “Debates shouldn’t devolve into screaming matches.”

“Are you like, forgetting that we went to school together?” Kady says. “Screaming debates are all I ever heard between you and…” She trails off.

“Quentin?” Alice says blandly. She slams a mug on the table, pouring fast enough to splash coffee everywhere. “You can say my dead boyfriend’s name. I mean, it’s not like it’s hard, is it? Quentin, Quentin, _Quentin_.”

Penny shoots an alarmed look across the counter to Kady, who is looking a little slack jawed.

“Uh, Alice…”

“You know what we should do?” Alice interrupts loudly. “We should start a dead lovers club! Right? Like, we’ve got so much in common, we can sit around and talk about our dead boyfriends and girlfriends, and you can tell me what it’s like to have your dead but also weirdly _not_ dead partner walking around.” She's waving the coffee pot about as she talks. Penny thinks she’s going to burn herself. “See, like, I wanna pick your brains about it, because I’ve been thinking of getting my hands on some living clay to make a Golem of Q. It’ll be different, sure, but like you _both_ have your not quite dead partners wandering around and you still want to fuck Penny and Penny still wants to fuck Julia so it can’t be _too_ bad.”

“Oh my fucking god,” Penny mutters. There’s so much jagged edged pain ricocheting around the space, that his mental barriers are starting to take a hit, as everyone else’s wards start to slip.

“You want to do _what_?!” Julia is back and the echoes from her mind are like an oil slick of pain spinning out into the room. 

“What,” Alice snarls back. “Are you the only one allowed to be fucked up over Q’s death? He was my _boyfriend_.”

“Yeah, and he was _my_ best friend. You can’t bring back some amalgamation of him just cause you’re fucking _sad._ ”

“You’re just jealous cause you didn’t think of it first.”

Julia laughs like it hurts, and Penny wants to take off. “No, actually, I know the _dangers_ of trying to put something together without all the parts. Or did you forget your adventures in niffin land and my time moonlighting as a soulless psycho beast?”

“I wouldn’t do something like that to Q!” Alice yells.

“Well _good_!” Julia screams back.

Silence rings in the kitchen as the two women glare at each other, latent bits of magic charging up the air. Penny can’t help but feel like the whole place is about to go off like a powder keg. Kady moves and snatches a piece of paper off the fridge.

“Rent’s due!” Kady says cheerfully. She extends the paper to Alice who stares at it blankly. “The Baba Yaga will be here next friday to collect, so I need all those things or I’m evicting both of you. Work together or split the list up, but if you don’t bring all that back to me in two weeks, I’m kicking you both out.”

Alice snatches the paper out of her hand. “I won’t need _her_ help.”

“Yeah _right_ ,” Julia sneers. “When you fuck it up, you know where to find me.”

Alice makes a high screaming noise in the back of her throat, and storms from the room. “Yeah, well why don’t you go back to your room and keep crying like a useless _bitch_.”

“Fuck you Alice!” Julia screams, and a vase explodes across the room.

“Nice control!” Alice hollers back, before the front door to the penthouse slams shut.

“ _Fuck you!_ ” Julia throws back, stomping back to her room, where the slam of her door echoes in the ringing silence.

Penny exhales slowly and turns to stare wide eyed at Kady. She whistles, grinning wanly at him. “I feel like I just grounded our kids.”

Penny groans and slumps down into a waiting stool. “That is seven kinds of fucked up,” he mutters. “I just wanted to eat some fucking cereal.”

Kady laughs. “You should go get a drink,” she says. “I’m sober these days, otherwise, I promise I’d be dragging you out that door to keep _me_ company.”

“It’s not even ten in the morning yet,” Penny says tiredly but he’s reaching for his phone anyway. 

“Well, I'm sure your fellow refugee is good for it.”

Penny glances at Kady but her face is carefully blank, as she begins to clean up the spilled coffee. “I’ll get all this,” he offers. “I’m sure you’ve got more important hedge witch boss stuff to be doing.”

“I do, yeah,” Kady smiles and drops the paper towels. “It’ll all work out. It’s the only option.”

He shoots off a text to Marina, and she responds within seconds.

Penny wonders if Margo would be pissed if he goes back to Fillory early.

**Eliot**

Eliot is not in any condition for this shit.

Starting with the stitches across his gut and the grease stain residue in his body and the cane that shouldn’t exist in his hand.

Yet here he is, trying to hustle through the woods, leaning heavily on the cane, each movement pulling sharply at his stitches. 

“Take it easy, Lipson said,” he gasps into the night air. “Don’t do anything strenuous. Don’t move around or walk for long stretches of time. Don’t mount a rescue in the dark, in a magical world, without any backup or knowledge of what the fuck you're getting into.”

It’s getting harder and harder to see in the ground before him, and Eliot knows that without the cane, he would’ve hit the ground ten times over by now. He had been following Margo slowly since she had left, knowing that he could no longer keep pace with her, and had wholly not expected her to start screaming and cawing for him.

Though really, he should have, because it’s Fillory.

Also, it’s _him,_ and if there is one thing he’s learned in this wretched life of his, it’s that he can’t have nice things, and he can’t keep his people safe.

Eliot grits his teeth as he hears Margo scream his name again, sounding much closer this time. Squinting ahead, he can see the start of a clearing, a huge dark writhing mass, and flashes of metal in the moonlight. He stumbles forward quicker now, and realizes that the mass seems to be a wall of twisting creeping vines and disappearing into it is Margo.

“El, if you don’t show up to my goddamn rescue, I will kill you,” she screams, as she wrenches herself back only to be dragged back under a moment later.

“I hear you loud and clear, Bambi,” he calls out.

“Eliot!” 

There’s relief in her voice and he drops his cane, bracing up against a tree to free his hands. The only positive change he’s noticed since crash landing back into his physical body is that magic seems to jump to his hands more easily than he can ever remember before. As though the monster had cleared out all the obstacles his mind and body had once had, turning him into a pure conduit. The thought is troubling, but Eliot appreciates it now, as he slashes both hands in sharp diagonals. A glittering red line cuts out from his fingertips, slicing clean into a swath of the creeping vines above Margo. There’s a second where nothing happens, then they explode outward, spraying what looks like a black liquid out over Margo and the clearing.

Eliot crouches down for his cane. He stumbles across to where Margo is twisting to get out from under the vines, which are already trying to recapture her. “What the fuck is this shit?” he gripes, wrapping his arms under hers and across her chest. She seems to be covered in the dripping liquid. 

“Don’t touch it,” she manages to get out along with a mouthful of the dripping black. “It’s making me trip balls.”

“You say that like it’s a discouragement,” he gripes. He’s pulling hard and it seems for every inch that they manage to haul her out of the snarling vines, more twist out around her ankles to pull her back. Margo swipes again with one of her axes cutting through the ones grasping at wrapping further up her calves. Eliot leans back as it sweeps close to his face on the backswing. “Watch where you swing that thing,” he snarls. “If you take me out then it’s over.”

“Fuck you,” she gasps.

“Can’t you freeze them?” he asks. The black liquid splashes up onto his hand and he hisses as his skin prickles and burns where it splatters. 

“Not working,” Margo says. They’ve managed to get her sitting up, and free her right leg.

“Not working how? Freeze them and I’ll break them!”

“Magic,” Margo growls, bringing an ax down again. “My _magic_ isn’t working.”

“ _What?_ ” Eliot brings his magic up just to check, and it zips to the surface, somehow faster and more vibrant than before. “Mine is just fine.” He sends a razor sharp slice of red energy slicing out against the vines holding her. With the sudden give, they're able to scramble backwards. More slither out reaching and grasping, but Eliot manages to keep slicing through them, ground saturated with the black liquid dripping from the shorn edges. He sees Margo’s head tip wildly to the sky, eyes dilated and darting around the sky.

“Aww Fen, really?”

“Margo, I really need you to _focus_ ,” Eliot snarls, anger and impatience coming to the fore as he tries to ignore the biting pain from his side. There’s no way he hasn’t pulled his stitches.

“Oh, I knew it was reminding me of something,” Margo says dreamily. “You look so pretty. Oh, hey Q.”

Eliot feels the air trap in his throat as he whips around to look at Margo. She’s completely given up on trying to escape, smiling vaguely up at the sky, and as far as he can see, there’s no one else with them. No Fen, and certainly no Q. He feels anger surge up through his gut, even though he knows that she clearly isn’t in her right mind. Before he can yell at her however, a vine wraps tightly around his throat, cutting off his air for real this time, and pulls him backwards off his feet. Margo’s head tips slightly in his direction, as her body is also wrapped up in vines, dragged in towards the castle.

“Devil’s Snare, right El? You’re totally right. I wonder if…” She lifts her hand and mimes an explosion with her fingers. “Woosh, would work? It would be pretty at least.”

Eliot’s hands are moving before his brain can parse the nonsense. Between the tips of his fingers, he feels the small sun form, quicker and more brightly than he has ever managed before. He abandons the usual step of containment, and simply throws his hands wide, allowing the miniature sun to grow wildly, throwing the night into sudden blinding daylight.

It’s almost instantaneous; the vines wrapping around his throat loosen and fall away. In the time it takes him to suck in a gasping breath, all the writhing plants have pulled away from them, twisting and shrinking from the light. He crawls as quickly as he’s able, over to Margo, grasps her waving hand and slaps her lightly across the face.

“Hey now, El” she says with a giggle. “We can’t play if I don’t remember my safe word.” She struggles up to a sit with his help. “Oh, look! We’re free!”

“Yes we are Bambi.” Eliot grimaces. “I need you to help me get up so we can get out of here.”

He can see her eyes begin to focus, losing the hazy drunk quality. She squints as the miniature sun, then works to get to her feet slowly. 

“El, you’re bleeding everywhere,” she observes.

“Thanks for the update love, I hadn’t noticed.” Eliot grits out. “If you would be so kind as to fetch my cane for me, then maybe we can start to work on getting out of here.”

“Hmm.” Margo narrows her eyes down at him before doing as he says. “I know I’m a bit fucked up right now, but there’s no need for the attitude.”

“I’m pretty sure we worked in some exceptions when it comes to the life threatening shit.” He bites back a groan as she shoves the cane into his hand, gets it braced in the ground, helping haul him to his feet. “I feel like this qualifies.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she mutters, swaying a bit as she retrieves her axes, strapping them to her back. “Where the fuck do we go now?”

“Anywhere but here,” Eliot mutters, glancing back at the miniature sun and writhing vines. They’ve pulled back enough from the light that he can see the stonework of the castle and he wonders if they should just face whatever might be inside. He glances along the curve of the castle wall, and there’s no sign of any kind of guard or even person in general. For this reason alone, he decides that their best move is to get as far as possible from Whitespire. “We need to hitch a ride with the locals.”

“Who the fuck is going to pick our asses up off the side of the road?” Margo gripes. It seems the further they get from the vines the more sober Margo becomes. 

“Well hopefully they don’t know anything about hitchhiking serial killers to know to be scared of us,” Eliot grunts back. They're moving as quick as they can but with each step Eliot feels himself leaning against her more and more as a crutch. He’s blinking dark spots from his eyes, and he’s not sure if it’s because they're walking away from his floating sun or because his body is about to crap out on him. He stumbles down to his knees with his next step, dragging Margo with him.

Crap out on him, apparently.

“You have to go get help,” he gasps, batting away her hands as she tries to pull him back up. “I’m not gonna be able to walk much farther.”

“Who the fuck is going to help us?” Margo snarls. “Penny’s not coming back for at least two weeks. I’m not leaving you behind.”

“You have to,” Eliot snaps back in much the same tone. “Drag someone, anyone off the road and get us out of here.” The blackness is slowly creeping over his entire vision and can’t feel the pain in his side anymore. “The mosaic,” he manages. “Get us to the mosaic.”

“El. Eliot!” Margo looks pale and afraid. 

The ground rushes up to meet him.

**Fen**

_Her relationship with sanity is and has been tenuous at best._

_She can admit this._

_Some part of her mind can look back and see herself cuddling a wooden log and be aghast and embarrassed by the act._

_A larger portion just nods along like yes, I nursed a log, what would you have done?_

_Because what good is sanity?_

_It’s all, stare at your problems, acknowledge the pain and misery, every bad decision, every harm that’s ever been done to you and deal with it. It’s all- your daddy bargained away your future, and your friend bargained away your baby, and your husband bargained away your kingdom. All that real stuff which is supposed to make you strong and wise, turn you into a poignant leader. All that real life sanity._

_Sanity is_ hard _, man._

_So she’s mostly let it go._

_For instance, her latest bout of insanity. She had been floaty for a long time, drifting in clouds of color and sound; she spent what she’s mostly certain was an entire year popping rainbow bubbles which rang out with cheerful, discordant renditions of Let It Go._

_So she did._

_Let go of it all._

_That glossy pink reality._

_She had noticed the bubble fields disappearing and lately she’s been spiraling slowly through a quiet white. It’s peaceful, in the white and she wonders how long it goes on for. She is not sure for how long she has been in this soft spiral but the sound of it is lovely and whole and beautiful. When she looks forward though, she notices that there are glimmering specks of yellow seeping into the white, and she wonders if the white, too, will be coming to an end._

_She considers that she might be sad to see it go, for in the white she had been enjoying a particular form of quiet insanity she might have once described as peace. But the influx of colors is also pleasing, and she finds herself interested in the noise which seems to arise from its blooming._

_There isn't a pattern to the colors and noises until quite suddenly there is. She’s looking down on a meadow. Fluttering green grasses giving way to thrumming wheat fields, arching pines farther on. There is a sprawling oak tree blooming up and if she turns her cheek, she feels the uppermost leaves brush across her skin. The sensation sends shivery pleasure running throughout the extent of her, and she becomes aware of her body for the first time in however long it has been since she last considered time._

_As though her body is responding to the feeling of existence again, she feels the tug of gravity and spirals to the ground. Her feet settle into the grass, and she smiles wide down at her toes which curl into the grass and further into the dirt below. She grins widely as clumps of dirt go flying when she wiggles her toes._

_The dirt splatters against a man in the grass._

_“Oh!” she says dreamily. “Hi, husband.”_

_He doesn’t react, which, typical really. He’s lying flat, blinking up at the sky, slack jawed. There’s drool running down the side of his face, creating. He’s been there long enough that the ground has grown up around him, grasses and flowers peeking up between his legs and around his feet._

_She giggles. “You’re pushing up daisies there, dearly beloved.”_

_“Um, hello?” she hears a voice say._

_“Um, hello?” she echoes back._

_“What are you doing here?”_

_She lifts her arms and face up, and begins to spin in a circle. “What are you doing here?” she trills up at the sky._

_“Um, no seriously. Are you here to like tell me something or—Fen? Fen, is that you?”_

_She freezes at the sound of that word. It starts to ricochet through her, slamming into her shoulders, her stomach, pin balling between her knees._

_“Fen?”_

_“Stop saying that!” Fen yells as her teeth rattle in her skull. She digs her hands into her hair, yanking hard, feeling pain scatter throughout._

_“Hey, hey, stop that!”_

_She feels hands wrap around hers, and the sensation is so far removed from what she can remember feeling that it actually burns. She pulls away sharply, falling to the ground and away from the burning touch, the yank of her hair soothing by comparison. She turns her eyes up and sees the silhouette of a person, obscured by the sun shining behind them._

_“What are you?” she snaps._

_“What am-? I’m Q. Quentin. I’m your friend, Quentin.”_

_She tips her head to the side to see him out of shadow. His face is pale and frowning and he has long hair spilling over his shoulder. She thinks she would remember this person._

_He reaches out towards her again. “Are you okay? Why are you here, Fen?”_

_“Stop saying that word!” Fen screams at him._

_His face does something funny and he throws his hands up stepping back. “Okay okay! I’m sorry! I won’t say it again.”_

_“It hurts,” she finds herself explaining. “It hurts when you say that word.”_

_“I didn’t know it would hurt you,” he says quickly. He seems earnest; there are glittering yellow bubbles drifting up from words and she finds herself trusting them. “Do you know where you are?”_

_“I’m in a meadow by a tree,” she says. She wonders if she’s slipping into a new kind of insanity. The pink bubbles may have been better._

_“Okay. You’re not wrong.” He purses his lips and leans around her to look at her husband on the ground. “What about him? Do you know why he’s here?”_

_She frowns and looks back at her husband who hasn’t moved except for the growing puddle of drool of his collar. “My husband? He’s always around.”_

_“Your husband? Oh, huh—I uh, didn’t see that coming?”_

_“He’s always been my husband?” she replies, but as she says it, it seems false, and she tries to catch the threads of what her mind is trying to tell her._

_“Okay, can I… is it okay if I say his name?”_

_She frowns at the thought. “Like what you called me?”_

_“Yeah, but, his._ His _name. Do you know it?”_

_“I don’t want you to hurt my husband like you hurt me.”_

_Quentin nods and walks around her carefully and kneels down by her husband's head. “I promise I don’t want to hurt him. I just want to make sure he’s okay. Do you know how long he’s been here?”_

_She waves her hands impatiently. “He’s just always here pushing up daisies. He used to be fun, but now he’s boring. So I just enjoy insanity without him.”_

_“Daisy it is then,” Quentin says, as if to himself. He reaches out to touch her husband and she tenses when his hand slides along her husband's neck. “It seems out of character for him to be missing out on insanity.”_

_Her husband blinks slowly at the sky but makes no further movement, nor does he show any sign of pain the way that she felt when Quentin touched her. She feels reassured and starts to lose interest in this distraction. Her skin itches and she preferred not feeling at all._

_“Do you know why you’re here?” Quentin asks, looking up at her. She decides he has pretty eyes._

_“No?” She feels her brain hurt from having to focus. “Why are_ you _here? This is_ my _insanity.”_

_“Huh, okay. Fair point. You’d think I’d have learned by now that not everything is about me.” He keeps looking at her and she’s not sure if she likes being seen. There’s too much bubbling up in her brain that she’s been happy to ignore._

_“Can I do anything for you?” he asks. “Since I’m breaking into your space.”_

_She thinks about it and then shakes her head. “No, I’m quite happy here.”_

_She starts to drift away when he calls her back. “Before you go, can you tell me if there are any windows here?”_

_“Windows?”_

_“My dad, or well, someone told me there are windows here in this place? To the real world?”_

_She frowns. “This_ is _the real world.”_

 _Quentin makes a face. “Okay, I’ll agree that it’s_ a _real world, but this is not the world I’m looking for. I’m looking for a window to the living world.”_

_“Living?” She looks down at her hands and wiggles her fingers. “Am I dead?”_

_“Are you?”_

_“I don’t think I’m dead.” She shakes her head and points on to a stream by the oak. “I think what you’re looking for is in the water. I’ll show you.” She feels her feet again, pressing hard into grass, and steps forward towards the water. They reach the edge and peer down from the bank. The water is flowing slowly, a swirling eddy of water ribboning down farther than she can make out._

_“What is that?” Quentin asks._

_“I used to live there!” she says, and it’s an interesting thought that brings to mind more things in her body, but also more pain of the sort that she’s been trying to shed along with her sanity. "It was home, and then it wasn't. There was a pretty Queen. Or was it King?"_

_“That’s Castle Whitespire?” he says, all surprised-like, and leans forward to squint. “What’s covering it?”_

_“Oh, I always thought of it as a Devil’s Snare.”_

_“Like from Harry Potter?”_

_“Yeah! An overgrown Hogwarts is all it is now. Why does it always go like that? It's always overgrown castles in the sky.”_

_"Well, it looks like this one is still on the ground at least." Quentin sighs and flops back down against the grass. “I’m not sure what window I was looking for, but I don’t think that’s it.”_

_She turns this over and settles down on the ground next to him. “Do you want to join my insanity? Or would you like to join my husband pushing up daisies?”_

_He laughs, and it’s a pretty, open sound that she doesn’t think she’s ever heard before. “Ah, what the hell. I’ll join you,” he says. “I’ve earned a little insanity.” He extends his hand out towards her, palm up._

_Slowly, she takes it. “I’ve been missing the company,” she admits._

_“I’m not going anywhere, Fen,” he says, and it sounds like he’s falling asleep. "Oops. Sorry I said your name."_

_“Okay,” she whispers. The word lights up against her skin, but doesn’t hurt quite the same. “It's okay. I think it sounds nice when you say it.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my beta bff [salt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltsanford)


End file.
